The motivation for increased coding efficiency in video coding has led to the adoption in the Joint Video Team (JVT) (a standards body) of more refined and complicated models and modes describing motion information for a given macroblock. These models and modes tend to make better advantage of the temporal redundancies that may exist within a video sequence. See, for example, ITU-T, Video Coding Expert Group (VCEG), “JVT Coding—(ITU-T H.26L & ISO/IEC JTC1 Standard)—Working Draft Number 2 (WD-2)”, ITU-T JVT-B 118, March 2002; and/or Heiko Schwarz and Thomas Wiegand, “Tree-structured macroblock partition”, Doc. VCEG-N17, December 2001.
There is continuing need for further improved methods and apparatuses that can support the latest models and modes and also possibly introduce new models and modes to take advantage of improved coding techniques.